Lisa Adams – A different View of The World

Lisa Adams is an artist of social conscience. Her works have a message for us and are at once current and possibly prophetic.

CB1 Gallery is presenting her fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, “America The Beautiful.” The works in this show are thoughtful paintings taking a look at personal, natural and political issues faced by Americans now and in the years to come.

Adams presents us with transformed images that we might see in urban and natural settings and combines them with re-imagined elements;dramatic skies, a tree giving off green gas, and an iconic American flag as seen above, to name a few.

In Degraded Material, above, Adams superimposes a burnt cutout of an empty house on a tired and sagging american flag. She is symbolizing the sagging American dream, in the loss of ideals that could encompass everything from the Californian housing crisis and education degradation, to the destruction of the American ecosystem by giants like genetic engineering giant Monsanto, whose poison coated seeds are killing off the American bee population.

Her work creates an uncomfortable new vision, and each one poses more questions than it answers.

Caput Mortuum Lisa Adams, 2015, 40×42, Courtesy CB1 Gallery

Then we have visions like Caput Mortuum above, in which we see a surreal landscape supporting a John Lautner homeless shelter. This is surrounded by shrubs that appear to be made of aluminum and earth that looks like it fell out of a graffiti spray can. She forces us to question our current reality and where it is headed.

If you live in Los Angeles this would be an exhibition well worth taking a look at.

This Weeks Question: Do you make art with a specific agenda? Do you think it is important for art to have meaning?